Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus and a job processing control program, and a job processing control method, and particularly relates to a print control apparatus that controls a printing apparatus including a color correction function and a job processing control program that controls print job processing based on color accuracy, and a job processing control method.
Description of the Related Art
When printing apparatuses including a color printing function, such as copiers and multi-functional peripherals (MFP: Multi-Functional Peripherals), are used to print in color, color management for accurately reproducing colors included in each page of a print job is important. Hence, a color correction is conventionally made by reading, with a colorimeter, a color correction-purpose chart where a color patch is placed, comparing color information that theoretically should be output and the actual color value measured by the colorimeter, obtaining the amount of change in color, and feeding it back such that the amount of change in color falls within an appropriate range.
In terms of the color correction, for example, JP 2006-162741 A discloses an image forming apparatus having a plurality of image forming methods for forming an image on a medium, the image forming apparatus including first calibration execution means for executing calibration for making the characteristic of image formation constant in accordance with a first image forming method, and determination means for determining the first calibration execution result, and image forming method change means for changing the image forming method to a second image forming method based on the determination result obtained by the determination means.
Moreover, JP 2007-181142 A discloses a color processing method including a first input step of inputting measurement data of a screen uniformity evaluation-purpose first chart output from an image forming apparatus, a first calculation step of calculating a color difference of the first chart between a predetermined category and another category based on the measurement data of the first chart, a second input step of inputting measurement data of a color matching level evaluation-purpose second chart output from the image forming apparatus, the second chart including a plurality of measurement-purpose patches, and reference data including measurement results of the measurement-purpose patches, a second calculation step of calculating a color difference between a color target contained in the reference data and its corresponding measurement-purpose patch of the second chart based on the reference data and the measurement data of the second chart, and a control step of executing the second input and calculation steps if the calculation result of the first calculation step satisfies a screen uniformity criterion, and not executing the second input and calculation steps if the calculation result of the first calculation step does not satisfy the criterion.
In such a color correction, the manual operation of a colorimeter located outside a printing apparatus by an operator or serviceman is conventionally mainstream. However, some of recent years' printing apparatuses include a colorimeter. They themselves can make a color correction automatically. With the automated color correction, a color correction is always executed before a job for which color accuracy is important. Accordingly, it becomes possible to prevent the occurrence of an image quality abnormality and prevent an output from failing to deliver and being discarded.
As a technology related to control over timing of the color correction, for example, JP 2006-168200 A discloses a printing system for outputting based on output data, the printing system including means for measuring a patch image output from a targeted output device and calibrating the color reproducibility of the output device based on the association relationship between the measured value and an output signal, means for recording a measured value obtained when the previous color calibration was performed by the output device, means for recording the date and time when the previous color calibration was performed, and means for calculating the amount of change in output characteristic based on the recorded previous measured value, the printing system being configured to calculate the relationship between the amount of change and an elapsed time based on the calculated amount of change and the elapsed time from the previous color calibration, and update and record the relationship in a cumulative manner.
As described above, in the method that executes a color correction on every execution of a print job for which color accuracy is important, consumable materials such as paper and toner and time are uselessly consumed due to the output and measurement of a color correction-purpose chart. To deal with this problem, JP 2006-168200 A discloses a method for accumulating the relationship between the amount of change in output characteristic and an elapsed time and recommending the execution of calibration if the time that is determined to exceed an allowable amount of change has come, and accordingly determining an optimum calibration interval.
However, the technology of JP 2006-168200 A executes a color correction whenever the amount of change exceeds the allowable limit. Therefore, not so high color accuracy is required. A color correction is automatically executed even on a print job that can be output without executing a color correction, when the amount of change exceeds the allowable limit. The consumption of consumable materials and time cannot be effectively prevented.